Undue Influence Read Online Free PDF Page A

invitation for her to open her mouth, maybe put her foot in it. But Jack has her by the hand, squeezing her fingers till the ends are white.
    “Talk to her,” says Jack. “Tell her to be reasonable.” They start to move off. Suddenly behind them I see Laurel, coming on like a locomotive at a crossing, her eyes ablaze, two white-hot coals. She swings it over one shoulder with both hands like a misaimed hammer throw in the Olympics, and three pounds of purse crash across lack’s shoulder. The purse misses Melanie’s head by an inch and instead catches Melanie’s own little bag, a beaded thing carried under one arm, sending it careening to the floor with Laurel’s. There’s lipstick, compacts, and wallets everywhere, slapping and sliding on hard terrazzo, the objects women carry scattered for the world to see. A plastic brush caroms across the floor where it ricochets off the polished shoe of a bailiff outside Department 14. Before I can move, Laurel’s into it with the broken strap of her purse, gripping this strip of leather as a handy garrote and seizing Melanie’s throat. For some reason this venom is not unleashed on Jack but Melanie Vega. I grab one arm before she can move.
    Jack is caught in the middle between the two women. He has both hands and forearms to his head now, covering up like a prizefighter backed into a corner. He’s wearing a woman’s hanky near the crotch of his pants. A lacy black thing like a doily, it clings to the wool nap of his suit. The bailiffs moving toward us.
    I grab Laurel by an arm and put myself in front of her, blocking her way. She has an athletic vitality, a sensuous muscularity. As I lean against her I am amazed by the mass of rippled muscle in her arms, and her legs of coiled spring. “What’s going on?” he says. The bailiff’s best command voice.
    The guy recognizes me and nods.
    “Just a disagreement,” I tell him.
    “Disagreement, my ass.” Jack’s coming out of his crouch. “Bitch tried to nail my wife with her purse,” he says. Not an ounce of fat on her body thin narrow hips, feeling Laurel’s upper arms, Jack’s fortunate she didn’t take a swing and come up short. He’d be on his ass, cold-cocked on the floor. “You can use the lawyers’ conference room.” The bailiff seems interested in avoiding problems, ducking a formal charge that will mean a lot of paperwork. Melanie with two fingers picks the woman’s hanky off her husband’s pants and lets it float to the floor. She gives the bailiff an imperious look like he should do something more. He does.
    He picks up the handkerchief and hands it to Melanie. “Belong to you?”
    he says. It is the closest thing to spit I have seen from a woman.
    Hemple’s picked up Laurel’s purse. I take the handkerchief from the cop and stuff it inside. People are picking up objects from the floor. “You bitch. You stay away from my kids.” Laurel is pumping up the venom again, a second wind. “I wish it was a goddamned sledgehammer.”
    She’s holding up the purse by a piece of its broken strap. I’m pushing her away now. The bailiff is giving us one of those dubious law-enforcement looks, perhaps second thoughts as to whether he should ask the victim if she wants to press charges. “Ask her what she did.”
    Laurel’s in my face now as I block her with my chest and move her toward the conference room. “And you,” she says. Laurel turns it on Jack now.
    “You don’t give a damn if she destroys your own children.” She calls Melanie a liar, among other assorted and more odious epithets. I have no idea what she’s talking about, but lawyer’s instinct tells me it has no place here in a public corridor. Hemple’s now joined us. She’s coaxing Laurel along from behind 1ike a tugboat at the stern. Melanie’s talking to the bailiff, all hands and facial gestures, like maybe she can convince him to get out his handcuffs. He gives her a face, lots of sympathy and equivocation. All the while he’s